Gone in the worst way. Gutshot on a sidewalk under the Yesler Way overpass. Gunned down early Saturday morning, right near the King County Courthouse.

Seattle police are looking for the killer, a dark-complexioned man in his 20s or 30s. The suspect, apparently angered after someone nearby set off firecrackers, pulled out his gun and fired. Then he calmly walked away.

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"Unfortunately the victim was in the line of fire," says Duane Fish of the Seattle police. "We have no idea who set off the firecrackers. But whether it was a poor practical joke or a malicious joke it cost this woman her life."

So where is the anger about what happened so close to the halls of city justice? Where are the appeals for someone who knows something to contact police? Where are the front-page stories that would have been written had the victim been a lawyer or a University of Washington co-ed on her way home from work at a nearby pub in Pioneer Square?

Sandra Lee Smiscon was 45 years old, Native American, and, according to police, homeless. That's not news fit for print, right? Just a bum and a bullet.

But so dies Sandra, so dies a piece of the city.

When she was slain a mother lost her daughter, her siblings lost a sister and the community lost a compassionate, if imperfect, soul struggling with addiction on the streets of Seattle.

"She wasn't homeless. She had a home -- right here," Elaine Smiscon, Sandra's mother, told me from her house in Wapato, 155 miles southeast of Seattle. The family is part of the Yakama Nation. Which also lost a daughter.

Elaine's voice is weary, strained. As she speaks, the life of her child takes on a humanity that has been sorely lacking in the news accounts.

Sandra attended East Valley High School in Moxee. She got a job working with patients at a local nursing home. The work suited her; she liked helping people.

Sandra had three children -- two daughters and a son. Her personal relationships fizzled, and she became deeply pained when the courts gave away custody of the children. The difficulties fueled her desire to drown personal pain in a sea of revelry.

"Aren't you a little too old to be a party animal?" her brother, Walter Jr., once asked her. "She told me, 'Heck no.' "

Sandra called Seattle "my second home."

She would come to town and work odd jobs, including telemarketing. But the demons of drinking and drugging also grew. Once, she confessed her burgeoning drug troubles to her mother.

"I told her drugs are hurting her brain and her body and pretty soon she would get into it badly," her mother recalled.

Just a few weeks ago, Sandra returned to the family home in Eastern Washington for a powwow celebration. Her loved ones were happy to see her, but she didn't stay long. She caught a ride back to Seattle with a friend.

"And that's the last time I saw her alive," Walter Jr. said.

The family said its final goodbye to Sandra this week. She was buried on the Yakama reservation after a traditional ceremony at a longhouse.

Sandra's 21-year-old son, George Jr., flew in from England, where he is stationed in the Air Force.

George has been involved in the war against Iraq. And now this -- for a family already worn down by sadness and tragedy.

One relative died a few years ago awaiting a liver transplant. Another was killed after a freak accident -- she fell and hit her head on the corner of a table.

Now, the family has little to say. The murderer has taken their words, along with the life of a woman who had just begun to realize she had to change her life.

Even near the concrete patch where Sandra was shot -- close to Fourth Avenue and Dilling Way -- people lamented the woman who showed heart in a harsh place.

"It's a waste," a young man wearing headphones said last night, standing near the spot where Sandra was shot. It's a popular place for homeless people to sleep.

"She took care of you," the man said. "She bought you food when you needed it."

Nearby, a striking woman in a very slinky black dress watched as he spoke with me. She stared me in the eye: "Baby, what do you need?" She was convulsing, from a drug or the lack of one.

The man with the headphones rolled his eyes. "This is one of the biggest drug zones, bro," he explained. "Cocaine. Weed."

The man said he was close to Sandra when she was hit. He said the suspect had "freaked out" and aimed his gun toward people who were responsible for the fireworks.

"He hit her by accident," said the man.

He would not give his name, but said he had spoken with police.

He paused and asked a good question: "What took you media guys so long to come out?"

In that instant, at the place where Sandra lost her life, there was only silence.